Once Upon a Wintertime
Once Upon a Wintertime
| 17 September 1954 (USA)
Once Upon a Wintertime Trailers

A short segment of the feature film Melody Time, re-released as a separate entity five years afterwards.

Reviews
Dorathen Better Late Then Never
Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Once Upon a Wintertime" is an American 8-minute cartoon from 1948, so this one will have its 70th anniversary next year already. It is a Disney production by Oscar winner Hamilton Luske and apparently this one here is an extract of a full feature film named "Melody Time". It's about a pair of (tiny) humans dancing on the ice and they are joined in here by a whole lot of animals. The looks for this one are pretty good overall and you can see it's from the Golden Age of Animation. Story-wise it is so-so. Cuteness prevails and the more dramatic parts, i.e. the breaking ice, the danger of drowning etc. are not really too memorable. But the music makes up for that I would say. It's not just a good watch, also a good listen. Maybe the kinda lack of a plot kept it from becoming another Oscar nomination for Disney. It's all good though. Quite enjoyable from start to finish I must say. In my opinion, you should see it, preferrable these days during the holidays. Definitely a thumbs-up here.
MartinHafer This is the first short that was used to make up the full-length film from Disney, "Melody Time". Following WWII, Disney Studio was a mess--a terrible strike and the war (where many of the workers were drafted and many more were assigned to wartime animation work) decimated the studio and many of the old animators were gone. As a result, Disney did not get back to making traditional animated feature films for several years. In the meantime, their 'full-length' films were really odd compilations of shorts--and of a rather lackluster quality compared to earlier and later work.The animation style and quality of this short is hardly reminiscent of classic Disney (such as "Snow White" or "Bambi"). Gone are the lovely detailed backgrounds and fine drawn characters. Instead, splashy solid color backgrounds and super-simplistic drawings filled this cartoon--such that it's hard to recognize it as a Disney product.As for story, it's only fair--and something that seems intended for older audiences. The film has no dialog and has singing by Frances Langford. The story consists of two young lovers cavorting about--ice skating and enjoying the great frozen outdoors. Later, the simplistically drawn lady nearly falls down a simplistic waterfall and is saved by her simplistically drawn boyfriend--then away they zip through the simplistic countryside on a simplistic sleigh. If you haven't guessed, the word for the day is 'simplistic'--a great description of this fair cartoon that is easy to skip.
tavm Originally released as part of the omnibus animated feature Melody Time (1948), Walt Disney made Once Upon a Wintertime as a separate short subject five years later. With the score consisting entirely of Francis Langford's rendition of the title song with a very long instrumental bridge, we watch a young adult couple riding on a sleigh accompanied by a similar male and female rabbit one down below on the blades. Then some little argument ensues before some thrilling thin ice danger brings everyone to a crescendo before the romantic happy ending ensues. Beautiful animation throughout and one gets that warm feeling nearly the entire time despite the cold setting. Well worth seeking out on YouTube which is where I watched this when I linked from the Saturday Morning Blog.
Mightyzebra This is one of quite a few shorts from "Melody Time" an animated Disney film featuring short animated "episodes". This is the first one - and not the best. It is sweet, well-animated and includes good singing - but it is a bit too silly - and there are other shorts in Melody Time that succeed further than this does.In this particular one, two lovers, in the wintertime (duh) are riding a carriage to a lake, so that they can skate together. As the two young lovers begin to skate, two rabbit lovers join them and unfortunately, things seem to go wrong between both couples...To watch this, watch the whole of "Melody Time". As far as I know, it is easily available - and completely worth watching. Enjoy "Once Upon a Wintertime"! :-)
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